The Original Trilogy Constructive Criticism Thread

[LJones41]

Since there is already a thread regarding constructive criticism for the Prequel Trilogy, I thought it would be only fair to begin one regarding the original trilogy.

Let me start off with one particular criticism - I don't recall ever seeing Leia's reaction to Alderaan's destruction. I recall Leia expressing surprise and disbelief at Tarkin's decision to use the Death Star on Alderaan, but I don't recall any expression of grief from her, following the planet's destruction.

 

[Reverend]

Different people react to shock and grief differently. Some instantly break down into hysterics, some just go numb while others go into denial. The way I read it, Leia was just desperately holding it all inside for almost the entire second half of the movie. Recall that when she got to Yavin there was this little exchange: -

"You're safe. When we heard about Alderaan, we feared the worst."
"We have no time for sorrows, Commander. You must use the information in this R-2 unit to help plan the attack- it's our only hope."

Those are the words of a person flat out refusing to deal. She doesn't even want to hear or talk about it.
At a certain point something would have to give though and I wouldn't be surprised if the second she was alone after the medal ceremony, she had a full on emotional (but not mental) break down.

 

[fireproof78]

She does react but it is brief. I think I once heard it described as a very difficult reaction to direct, since how do you react to your whole world being blown up? Not that it excuses it, but it sheds light on the process.

I think @Reverend as a good point that she was not really able to process those emotions at that time.

As for OT criticism, Luke's training always bothered me, at least as far as time frame. Obviously, we don't know how much time passed but it just felt like Yoda was trying to get him through, but then Luke rushes off. Once he comes back, Yoda says he doesn't need any more training.

It feels very rushed to me.

 

[Reverend]

I always felt like the time on Dagobah should be on the order of weeks or a month at most. It seems unlikely that Han and Leia could have co-habited on the Falcon for much longer than that without murdering each other, or Chewie shoving them both out he airlock in exasperation.

 

[Venardhi]

Make the Imperial base on Endor/The Forest Moon a forced labor camp building ATSTs and the like and replace the Ewoks with a group of escaped slaves. Could be Wookiees, or an assorted group of races, etc. Less ridiculous that they actually managed to win that way and would keep the tone a bit more consistent with the rest of the film.

 

[Reverend]

^Because a hookah smoking, frog eating, gangster slug man feeding people to a nightmare genital pit monster is not at all ridiculous?

If you makes you feel any better, that whole thing makes more sense when you remember that the Ewoks are used to dealing with these things. I mean, what did you think all those log traps and catapults were actually built for?

 

[Captain April]

AT-ATs are just too slow in my opinion.

 

[CorporalClegg]

I always felt like the time on Dagobah should be on the order of weeks or a month at most. It seems unlikely that Han and Leia could have co-habited on the Falcon for much longer than that without murdering each other, or Chewie shoving them both out he airlock in exasperation.

This has always confused me. I get the need for the time compression, but still I would have liked to see some clarification.

I'm sure part of the point was that, since they traveled from the asteroid field to Bespin on normal engines, it probably took much longer than usual. But just how long, exactly?

AT-ATs are just too slow in my opinion.

AT-ATs are one of those things that don't make any practical or realistic sense.

 

[Reverend]

I think the idea with the AT-ATs is that they needed something that slow to be able to pass through the energy shield. Which they needed to do in order to take out the power generator and allow the landing ships to come in. Bringing in fighters or gunships and just moving them slowly over the threshold wouldn't work because they'd be sitting ducks for the duration and easily picked off.

Walkers are big and slow yes, but they're also heavily armoured and can take the punishment of a frontal assault on an entrenched target. They're siege machines.

This has always confused me. I get the need for the time compression, but still I would have liked to see some clarification.

I'm sure part of the point was that, since they traveled from the asteroid field to Bespin on normal engines, it probably took much longer than usual. But just how long, exactly?

The passage of time in Star Wars is always a little vague and when the characters are in space it's impossible to mark visually (no sunrises, or sunsets.)
It's possible they spent hours fleeing from the blockade, a week in the Space Slug making repairs and a month at flying at sublight from Anoat to Bespin. There's just no way to tell beyond the need to lend credence to the line "it's pretty far but I think we can make it" and lend some credibility to Luke having something at least approaching intensive training.

 

[Captain April]

I think the idea with the AT-ATs is that they needed something that slow to be able to pass through the energy shield.

Are you saying that 'The slow AT-AT penetrates the shield'?

 

[Reverend]

Are you saying that 'The slow AT-AT penetrates the shield'?

Pretty much. There was a bit in TCW's Onderon arc that established that SW shields act on similar rules to Dune's. That aside it's consistent with what we saw in tESB.

 

[fireproof78]

I always felt like the time on Dagobah should be on the order of weeks or a month at most. It seems unlikely that Han and Leia could have co-habited on the Falcon for much longer than that without murdering each other, or Chewie shoving them both out he airlock in exasperation.

I tend to agree

Plus, how long was Boba Fett tracking them if it took so long?

 

[CorporalClegg]

"Tracking" doesn't necessarily mean following. He could have jaunted off to the nearest cantina once he realized they were limited to sublight. And I'm sure he probably could have sneaked a homing device on the Falcon's hull with out anyone realizing.

And since got to Bespin first, at some point, he must have realized that was where they were going.

 

[fireproof78]

"Tracking" doesn't necessarily mean following. He could have jaunted off to the nearest cantina once he realized they were limited to sublight. And I'm sure he probably could have sneaked a homing device on the Falcon's hull with out anyone realizing.

And since got to Bespin first, at some point, he must have realized that was where they were going.

Good point. He was probably chilling in the Bespin bar waiting for them to make the slow crawl there.

 

[JeffinOakland]

The original trilogy were proof that you can make movies rife with all kinds of errors and inconsistencies and people will cheerfully ignore them and just enjoy the movies. I notice the errors and I just shake my head and smile. Who cares?

 

[Reverend]

Most of it isn't really errors so much as story telling conceits, which are common to most films and in a fantasy adventure tale there's a lot more leeway.

 

[Venardhi]

This has always confused me. I get the need for the time compression, but still I would have liked to see some clarification.

I'm sure part of the point was that, since they traveled from the asteroid field to Bespin on normal engines, it probably took much longer than usual. But just how long, exactly?

My "head canon" is that ".5 past lightspeed" Han brags about is the top speed out of hyperspace and it is on a logarithmic scale. With time dilation in effect at some significant fraction of 5C, they could experience a fairly short amount of time (a couple days or weeks) in the Falcon but have several months or even years pass for Luke to train and the Empire to set their trap.

Of course, I never cared about that as a kid and still don't care that much. It is just a fun thought on how it might have worked.

 

[Kor]

Let me start off with one particular criticism - I don't recall ever seeing Leia's reaction to Alderaan's destruction. I recall Leia expressing surprise and disbelief at Tarkin's decision to use the Death Star on Alderaan, but I don't recall any expression of grief from her, following the planet's destruction.

So what would you have done to improve this? That's the idea behind positive, constructive criticism.

IMO, ROTJ could have benefited from some changes. Mainly, replace the teddy bears with something else.

Kor

 

[Ithekro]

I seem to recall that the choice of Ewoks being short cuddly bear-like creatures was a n intentional choice by Lucas because he had wanted to use primitives against the Empire, but Wookies (his first choice) had turned out to be less primitive than he wanted. So to make the Ewoks a counterpoint to the technical Wookie, he would make them short insead of tall with long hair. He even described this in the making of specials in 1983.

 

[Sketcher]

I always thought ROTJ should have been the rebels taking back Coruscant. That way you can still have a giant space battle, and Luke could be on the planet with the emporer and Vader, all without the repeat of another Death Star.